Stand to Reason Blog

Radio Sunday

Live radio Sunday 2-5 p.m. PT with J. Warner Wallace from Please Convince Me in the host seat.  (Greg will be back soon - it's just a combination of speaking trips and vacation comining to make an unusually long absence.)  Ken Samples will be on to discuss his new book 7 Truths That Changed the World:  Discovering Christianity's Most Dangerous Ideas.

Listen live on the air or stream it on the STR app or online.  Follow us on Twitter @STRtweets #STRtalk.

Newly Discovered Manuscripts

Dan Wallace gives some more information about the new manuscript finds (papyri from the first, second, and maybe third centuries), saying that the dates of the fragments are “extraordinarily significant.”

These manuscripts are going to have some variance from the New Testament. But what’s significant is, in the last 130 years [when all of the papyri have been discovered] there’s not been a single manuscript discovered that has a new reading that scholars have said, “Ah! That’s the original, and no other manuscript has it”….

Our papyri give readings that may change the balance of evidence in terms of “Well, we used to think reading A was original, now we think reading B is it because of the papyri evidence.” But it’s never going to be reading C that’s a reading we never knew about until this papyrus was found.

 

Love Your Enemies?

In this deleted scene from Collision, Christopher Hitchens derides Jesus’ command to love our enemies:

I’m not going to love them. You go love them if you want. Don’t love them on my behalf. I’ll get on with killing them, destroying them, erasing them. And you can love them. But the idea that you ought to love them is not a moral idea at all. It’s a wicked idea.

But as Douglas Wilson (his debate partner) notes in his comments on this outtake:

In the previous outtake from Collision, his complaint against God was that God treated his enemies in exactly the way that Christopher was insisting (now) that our enemies must be treated. In short, in the previous clip, how dare God send his enemies to hell? In this clip, how dare God interfere with our attempts to send them there?

Cornelius Van Til once used the illustration of a rebellious child who needs to sit on his father’s lap in order to slap him. In order to attack God, a rebel must pick some place to stand (which necessarily must be an attribute of God’s considered in isolation) in order to be able to be critical of another of God’s attributes. These two video clips provide a perfect illustration of the technique. In this clip, Christopher uses the doctrine of justice to attack God’s words concerning love. In the previous clip, sitting at the same table, he was using the reality of God’s love to attack God’s words concerning justice.

Christians and Homosexuality

Kevin DeYoung has some excellent counsel for how Christians can engage those who object to the Biblical teaching about homosexuality.

There are various groups that may be listening when we speak about homosexuality, and the group we think we are addressing usually dictates how we speak.

• If we are speaking to cultural elites who despise us and our beliefs, we want to be bold and courageous.
• If we are speaking to strugglers who fight against same sex attraction, we want to be patient and sympathetic.
• If we are speaking to sufferers who have been mistreated by the church, we want to be apologetic and humble.
• If we are speaking to shaky Christians who seem ready to compromise the faith for society’s approval, we want to be persuasive and persistent.
• If we are speaking to liberal Christians who have deviated from the truth once delivered for the saints, we want to be serious and hortatory.
• If we are speaking to gays and lesbians who live as the Scriptures would not have them live, we want to be winsome and straightforward.
• If we are speaking to beligerent Christians who hate or fear homosexuals, we want to be upset and disappointed.

So how ought we to speak about homosexuality? Should we be defiant and defensive or gentle and entreating? Yes and yes. It depends on who is listening. All seven scenarios above are real and not uncommon. And while some Christians may be called to speak to one group in particular, we must keep in mind that in this technological day and age anyone from any group may be listening in. This means that we will often be misunderstood. It also means we should make some broad basic commitments to each other and to our friends and foes in speaking about homosexuality.

Here are ten commitments I hope Christians and churches will consider making in their heads and hearts, before God and before a watching world.

1. We will preach through the Bible consecutively and expositionally that we might teach the whole counsel of God (even the unpopular parts) and to avoid riding hobby horses (even popular ones).

2. We will tell the truth about all sins, including homosexuality, but especially the sins most prevalent in our communities.

3. We will guard the truth of God’s word, protect God’s people from error, and confront the world when it tries to press us into its mold.

4. We will call all people to faith in Christ as the only way to the Father and the only way to have eternal life.

5. We will tell all people about the good news of the gospel, that Jesus died in our place and rose again so that we might be set free from the curse of the law and be saved from the wrath of God.

6. We will treat all Christians as new creations in Christ, reminding each other that our true identity is not based on sexuality or self-expression but on our union with Christ.

7. We will extend God’s forgiveness to all those who come in brokenhearted repentance, everyone from homosexual sinners to heterosexual sinners, from the proud to the greedy, from the people pleaser to the self-righteous.

8. We will ask for forgiveness when we are rude, thoughtless, or joke inappropriately about homosexuals.

9. We will strive to be a community that welcomes all those who hate their sin and struggle against it, even when that struggle involves failures and setbacks.

10. We will seek to love all  in our midst, regardless of their particular vices or virtues, by preaching the Bible, recognizing evidences of God’s grace, pointing out behaviors that dishonor the Lord, taking church membership seriously, exercising church discipline, announcing the free offer of the gospel, striving for holiness together, and exulting in Christ above all things.

Same-sex Marriage Arguments

A columnist in the Chicago Tribune wrote a column about why the arguments against same-sex marriage fail.  I certainly appreciate that he responds to the arguments with rational responses rather than ad hominem attacks or red herrings.  That's a refreshing change.  But I still think his responses fall short of undermining the reasons.  Here's why.

"Gay marriage violates tradition." He says that tradition is a mixed bad and expanding rights requires overturning it.  In principle, he's right.  But we don't appeal to tradition just for the tradition's sake.  "We've always done it this way."  it's a universal tradition across millennia, cultures, races, and religions.  It's pretty much universal tradition.  So there's a pretty big precedent that can't be dismissed.  And there's reason behind this vast tradition.  It's the way societies work best to organize families to protect children to perpetuate the next generation.  Look, tradition has been overturned before the push for same-sex marriage.  It was most notably overturned in the U.S. when no-fault divorce was introduced and the sexual revolution ensued.  Families have been eroding for a while now and the results aren't good.  Experience would argue that there was wisdom behind tradition and we should return to it instead of advancing on to further social experiments.

"Gay couples can't produce children."  He cites other cases of marriage we allow that don't produce children.  True enough, but citing exceptions doesn't undermine the rule.  In general, society's interest in marriage is the children they produce.  Same-sex marriage doesn't create an exception but an entirely new class of marriages in which children do not result as a rule.  While individuals may be free to engage in these relationships, society and government just don't have a stake in them so marriage doesn't apply.

"Having a mom and a dad is better for children than having two moms or two dads."  All of our experience says so and so do studies.  Study after study in the last 30 years has demonstrated the horrific consequences for children in single-parent families and broken homes.  The damage to children and society as a result is significant.  J. Warner Wallace guest hosted the radio program Sunday and opened the show commenting on this.  You can listen here.

"Legalizing same-sex marriage will put us on the slippery slope toward legalizing polygamy." He asserts that same-sex marriage does not fundamentally alter the two-person model of traditional marriage.  Only if you consider the sexes interchangeable.  It's not as though the two people being male and female is incidental to the traditional marriage.  It's a fundamental change to the definition.  And there is a logical slippery slope between the way proponents of same-sex marriage justify their arguments and polygamy. Once the arguments are encoded in the law, there's nothing in principle that keeps the justification for one from justifying the second.  Supporters of same-sex marriage admit that further radical redefinition of marriage is part of the agenda.

"Same-sex marriage trivializes and therefore weakens the institution of heterosexual marriage." To the extent that heterosexuals have already weakened and trivialized marriage with divorce, living together, and out-of-wedlock parenting, the institution has already taken some significant hits.  But that doesn't mean we should make further changes that undermine it.  And the fact is that homosexual couples haven't taken advantage of the freedom to marry in significant numbers according to the U.S. Census and studies in other countries.  That seems to indicate that the goal isn't marriage as much as social acceptance that marriage conveys.

"Homosexual behavior is immoral and ought not be encouraged."  He doesn't want to argue morality.  Fair enough.  But arguments about morality aren't simply based in religion.  Largely, morality arguments are drawn from nature, which can give us a good justification for design and purpose.  Greg gives a case here

But all of this really is beside the point.  The real issue is whether or not marriage is a right.  It's not.  It's nor more a right than a drivers' license is a right.  As far as goverment's recognition of marriage, there is no right to either on.  They're civil arrangements that the goverment has an interest in.  The only obligation to rights the government has is to treat equally all citizens who meet the qualifications.  If you pass the driver's test, you get a license.  If you meet the qualifications for marriage, you also get a license and recognition from the government.  And in that respect, everyone - heterosexual or homosexual - has exactly the same access to marriage:  Each is equally free to marry one person at a time of the opposite sex.  The qualification for marriage has never been to marry who you love, it's bee to marry an individual that creates a union the government has an interest in.  Everyone else is free to carry on relationships as they wish. 

It doesn't come up in this column, but just because I think it's such a good argument, here is Frank Beckwith's explanation for why the analogy between interracial marriage and same-sex marriage fails.

No Earthly Good?

John Loftus of Debunking Christianity, author of Why I Became an Atheist, has announced he doesn’t want to spend time arguing for atheism anymore:

I have no more desire to engage Christians. They are deluded, all of them. I have never been more convinced of this than I am now. I have better things to do. I spent 39+ years of my adult life on a delusion. If I add the years of my childhood that's almost my entire life. Yet this is the only life I will ever have. It's time to move on, or at a minimum take a very long hiatus.... If what I have written isn't good enough then nothing is good enough for some Christians. What I intend to do is turn this blog over to a few qualified people. I'll still be a part of it and I suppose I'll post something from time to time. But I see no reason to waste large chunks of my time on this delusion anymore. [He continues in a comment:] I'm going to do other more enjoyable things.

My purpose in talking about this is not in any way to speak badly of John Loftus for quitting. Who enjoys spending all their time arguing for something that is continually rejected—particularly online, where the anonymity of commenters leaves a blogger open to all sorts of frustrations and abuse? I can sympathize with his desire to walk away.

In fact, there’s a moment in Spider-Man 2 I often think of where Peter Parker, after being fed up with being hated by the people he’s trying to help, decides to hang up his Spidey costume and live a normal life, free from the weight of his responsibility to sacrifice himself for others, free to pursue what he enjoys. As the sound of a siren approaches and police rush past him, we think for a moment that he’ll take action to help, as he used to. But no. Instead, he takes a big bite of his hot dog and continues on his way.

 

Who in the fight doesn’t want that? Who isn’t tempted by that hot dog—that call to an easier life?

So here’s the question: Since that is a temptation for everyone, what is likely to make the difference? Why do people like Jim Elliot give up their very lives for others, sacrificing all the earthly pleasures we all long for?

I think there are many answers to that, but I see a big one in Loftus’s explanation. If this life is indeed the only life you will ever have, then it’s true that life is too short…to spend it suffering thanklessly for the sake of others. This is why, contrary to the catchy saying, being “heavenly minded” doesn’t make you “no earthly good.” Rather, it’s the very fuel of earthly sacrifice, as John Piper explains:

So don’t make the mistake of thinking that future-oriented, future-sustained joy limits present usefulness. It doesn’t limit it. It liberates it. If your future is glorious and sure (which it is in Christ!), you don’t live for money or power or fame. You don’t have to grasp and snatch and chase pleasures that are slipping through your aging fingers. You are free to live for others now. You are free to be another kind of person than the kind that lives for this world. If your hope is glorious and sure, you will seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other basic things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). Your love will be genuine. It will be radical, risk-taking, sacrificial because of the joy set before you [emphasis added].

Most people want to do good for others in theory. But no great good is accomplished without suffering. Is your life “too short” to spend it on this? Or can you say with Jim Elliot, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose”?

Again, the point of this is not to say we’re better people than John Loftus. I know I’m not better. It’s only to say that he’s right—he has no good reason to continue. But we do.

Is Our God the God? (Video)

One of my Sunday School students asked me last week, "How do we know our God is the God? Any suggestions on how to go about answering this would be great."